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Oral History
of
W.O. “Bill” Nelson
Interviewed by:
Jerry Grover & Bob Ruesink
September 22, 2009
ABSTRACT: At one time in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Predator and Rodent Control Program
was the single largest budget item of the Service and employed more than half of all Service employees,
and all the Regional Directors had their beginnings in this program. W.O. ‘Bill’ Nelson from his earliest days
working in the field of wildlife resources was part of this effort. His many assignments throughout areas
west of the Mississippi River and the Washington Office challenged him on other multiple conservation
management issues until he retired in January 1980 as part of the Fish & Wildlife Service Directorate as
the Regional Director for the Southwest Region in Albuquerque, NM for the final 10 years of his career.
While thoroughly a supporter of the ‘gopher choker’ program and its use of the poison 1080 he has also
been recognized for his efforts in the recovery of America’s conservation bird, the whooping crane. Bill
lives in his home in Twin Falls, Idaho with his daughter Jackie nearby.
ORDER of PRESENTATION
• Abstract
• Transcribed Oral History
• Stories of Reminiscing
THE ORAL HISTORY
JG: This is Jerry Grover, a retired Ecological Services & Fishery
supervisor in the Portland Regional Office and I am in Twin Falls,
Idaho, to do an oral history on W.O. “Bill” Nelson regarding his
career with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. With me today is
Bob Reusink, a retired project leader from the Boise Ecological
Services Field Office. Bill where were you born and raised?
WN: I was born in American Fork, Utah in 1921. I’m 88 years old.
JG: When you retired, what was your position and where were you
located?
WN: When I retired, I was the Southwest Regional Director at the
Fish & Wildlife Service Regional Office in Albuquerque, New
Mexico.
JG: How did you get interested in the field of Fish and Wildlife?
WN: My father worked for the Fish and Wildlife Service back
when it was called the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife, in
the Division of Predator and Rodent Control. I worked one
summer for the Forest Service while I was in college, and then the
other two summers I worked for the Fish and Wildlife Service
doing rodent control work in the high Uintah Mountains in Utah.
Then, I went into the Army in World War II. After I got out, I
completed my degree at Utah State University and was hired by
the Fish and Wildlife Service in 1948 right after I graduated. My
first job was a joint project with the Utah State Game and Fish
Department and the Fish and Wildlife Service on an
antelope/coyote study in the western desert in Utah. We lived at
the U.S. Forest Service Ranger Station about 50 miles west of
Milford, UT.
In 1948, a severe winter weather hit the west desert across the
country. A number of livestock froze to death or starved. We had
one daughter, Judy, who became ill and my wife called the nearest
doctor in Fillmore and while she was talking to him the line went
dead. He went down to the drug store and told the druggist that
Judy was sick and he could not get any medicine to her. There
were some national newspaper reporters there, and they picked the
story up and it made national news. A national commentator came
on that night and said, “ I have sad news tonight. The Nelson Baby
at the Forest Service Desert Range Experiment Station in Western
Utah is dying of malnutrition because no one can reach her
because of the snowstorm.” Of course, we had enough food to last
us a month, and you know how a kid is, the next day she was well.
We had no TV, no radio, and no power out there, so we did not
know all of this was making national news. It was a great worry to
our parents. This went on for a week before the Forest Service got
an emergency radio to us, and many people were making all kinds
of ways to rescue us. The doctor in Milford was a paramedic
during World War II, and he said that he would get a parachute and
parachute in to us, to treat her. When we found out about it we
located a Forest Service emergency radio and told him that Judy
was well, and not to come. In a couple of days, he got skis for his
airplane out of Wyoming and flew in. We told him to go as we did
not want to feed him also. We were snowbound for 20-some days.
When we left, I stopped by the doctor’s office in Milford and
asked him how much I owed him. He said, “not a thing”. He said,
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“If I get away from this without being reprimanded for all those
false stories I’ll just be lucky”. Then, I went to Salt Lake. I worked
out of that office for 2-3 months before I was transferred to
Phoenix, Arizona. When I was in Phoenix a month or two later, I
read in the paper where the Doctor got some national award for
heroism for going out there saving the Nelson baby.
JG: What grade were you hired in as a GS grade?
WN: It was a SP.
JG: A what?
WN: SP-6?. Yep or a SP-5!
JG: I don’t know that classification …That’s before my time.
WN: SP is Sub-Professional, a classification. And when I went to
Phoenix, I was hired as a GS-5 Wildlife Biologist.
JG: With a college degree?
WN: It was the lowest grade possible for a professional series. We
damn near starved to death on that wage. I got my big check every
two weeks and would take it into the bank and cash it. This one
time I was late getting to the bank so I went to the grocery store
and a kid was checking me out. I gave him my check and he said
“Oh! I see you make the same every week that I make!” That was
two weeks as a GS-5. Salaries were low right after the war. It was
a while before they started raising them to make them more equal
with the private sector. I was in Phoenix for about a year working
as an Assistant to the State’s District Agent for Predator and
Rodent Control. I worked all over the State.
I then was lucky to be selected to go to Washington, D.C. as a
Department of Interior trainee on a 9 month program. However,
they asked me to stay for a year to work on a special program. That
was in 1954. I spent four months working in the Secretary of the
Interior’s office and four months in the Bureau of Land
Management (BLM), working on different things. It was a good
assignment. At the time the BLM did everything under the sun to
get me to go to work for them at a higher grade. Then, the Fish and
Wildlife Service finally gave me a GS-7. You know, living in
Washington as a GS-6 with a child is pretty hard to do.
Then they sent me back to Phoenix. I was in Phoenix for about
three or four months and they transferred me to Manhattan,
Kansas, where I opened an office in cooperation with the Kansas
Farm Bureau and Kansas State University. I ran that office for
about a year. After a year, Dorr Green, who was the Division
Chief, come by and asked me what I thought about the job and I
said, “Kansas State University does not want to cooperate with the
Fish and Wildlife Service. They want me to become an assistant
professors and run the same program through the college.”
I was still doing strictly predator control work on coyotes as the
target species. Kansas had an unbelievable population. They had
never been controlled. One time we used 1080. It was the best
poison available but it got such a bad name that we had to stop
using it. It was the most specific type of poison if you wanted to
kill coyotes, but it would also kill dogs and foxes. You only put out
one bait every six miles. The coyotes range is far, you could
control them, but it would kill the dogs that ate on the bait giving it
the bad name.
We would bait a carcass - 99% were horses, and use 1080 in a
liquid form. You would insert the poison in the meat. Then you
take the meat, like a leg out and tie it down with a stake so it
couldn’t be carried away, and then leave it out for three or four
months. Then you would go back and get it and either burn it or
bury it, so it would not be eaten by anything else. That’s what got
me in good with Nat Reed, who was then Assistant Secretary for
Fish, Wildlife and Parks in the Department of the Interior. In all of
this controversy, Nat relied on me a great deal. I was flying back
and forth to Washington every time I would turn around to meet
with Congressional delegations, with Nat Reed, and others who
were objecting to the use of it. Of course we found that we had to
stop its use because of all the objections.
I went to Oklahoma City to work as the State Supervisor for
Oklahoma and Kansas District and was there for about four years. I
had about 35 or so trappers working in Oklahoma but none in
Kansas. P&RC and had nothing going on in Kansas except
meeting with the Farm Bureau and doing some extension-type
work. Then, I moved to Oklahoma City. I was told I would replace
old A.E. Gray who had been the State Supervisor for a long time.
He was very ineffective and they tried to get him to retire but he
was not willing to go. They had a law back then where you could
work until you were 70, if you proved to be capable. He hired a
lawyer to prove himself capable and he worked right up till he was
69 or so. After he retired I was the State Supervisor there for those
two states for about four years. I received a promotion to a GS-11.
Then the Regional Supervisor’s job in Minneapolis, Minnesota,
opened up, after Noble Beuell, who was then the Supervisor went
to Washington as a Division Chief. He recommended me for this
position. Dan Jantzen was the Regional Director in Minneapolis he
came down and asked me if I would take it. Albuquerque tried to
get me come over there as Assistant Regional Director, but I could
get a grade higher going to Minneapolis. It was good for me but
kind of tough on the family to keep moving. I stayed there for
about four years. While I was there, I supervised along with other
offices, an office in Purdue University that mainly experimented
with new rodent and bird control agents.
While we were there the Purdue office experimented with
Warfarin now used as a blood thinner world wide. They found out
that it would also kill rats and mice by over thinning their blood.
That’s where they came up with D-Con. Warfarin gets it name
from the Wisconsin Alumni Foundation. The Foundation sent me a
great big block of cheese that I divided up with the office in
Minneapolis. We did a lot of bird research controlling birds and it
was unbelievable. It scared the hell out of me. We had one guy,
Fitzwater was his name, he’d do anything to find out how to kill
nuisance birds. You know starlings are all right when you get 50 or
100 or 200 or 500, but when you get 4 or 5 million as some
Midwest towns did, they became a problem. Bill Fitzwater got to
where he could kill them or scare them away.
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Histoplasmosis in birds was a big concern at the time. That was a
disease the city fathers had to deal with because of the massive
amounts of bird droppings on their streets. Fitzwater killed a lot of
birds experimenting with them. One time, when he was showing
Indianapolis fire department how to scare birds from a big bridge
going into town Fitzwater took his car or panel truck where he had
all these fireworks stored to scare the birds off the bridge. He had a
big cigar in his mouth and he dropped it down in the firecrackers.
We got a lot of publicity out of that!
JG: I’d like to step back just a moment and return to where you
alluded to your family was present here…where did you meet your
wife?
WN: I was going to Brigham Young University and she was in
high school, in Pleasant Grove, Utah. She was an extremely
brilliant young lady. She was the valedictorian. She was in the
school plays and I think of her as a beautiful young lady. She was
very talented. When I was working in Minneapolis, she developed
a system of using flannel boards to tell old classical children
stories to schools and on TV. She told these stories for money. Her
usual fee was $100.00 or $150.00 depending on the size of the
audience. She also told told these stories on public television.
When I was transferred to Washington D.C. she did some more of
the same in a number of the schools in that area. There she started
to develope MS, [multiple sclerosis] and she had to give it up. She
passed away about 8 years ago.
Judy, my oldest, retired 4 or 5 years ago as Deputy State Director
of the Bureau of Land Management in Portland, Oregon. My
second daughter, Jacque, teaches science here at the junior high in
Twin Falls, Idaho. My youngest daughter is an engineer and she
teaches engineering at Cal Poly (California Polytechnic State
University) in San Luis Obispo, California, so they have all been
very successful. They all take after their mother.
JG: Let’s go back to where you are in Minneapolis. When you
took the job in Minneapolis and you were a GS-12 now?
WN: That's right. I was a GS-11 in Oklahoma and became a GS-
12 as the Regional Supervisor in Minneapolis. Predator and Rodent
Control was a big thing in Region 2 but not here. Refuges
dominated the programs here in Region 3.
JG: But you stayed mainly in the Predator and Rodent Control
program, P&RC?
WN: Yes. About 4 years later I was asked to transfer to
Washington, D.C. by my former Regional Director Dan Jantzen in
Minneapolis who had just recently transferred to Washington, D.C
as the Director of the Service.
Earlier he had selected Noble Beuell as his Chief of the P&RC
program in Minneapolis. Then he moved Noble up to the Division
Chief for P&RC in Washington then very shortly as Assistant
Director for Wildlife. The new Director flew out to Minneapolis, I
think for 2 reasons. One, was to ask me to go to Washington, but
the other was to come and visit old friends. Anyway, a man by the
name of Cliff Presnell, was Chief of the P&RC Division. He had
transferred over from the National Park Service, and was not really
an old hand at predator and rodent control. They wanted to bring
someone in with field experience. Cliff was due to retire in 1 year,
and they asked if I would come in and be his assistant at the same
grade, and in 1 year, they would make me the Division Chief for
P&RC.
They put a lot of pressure on me to do it, so as soon as we could
get things in order we moved. In the meantime, in Washington,
D.C., the Predator and Rodent Control was getting much heat.
Director Dan Jantzen retired after being in that office for a year or
two. Then John Gottschalk came in as Director in 1970. When I
got there John and Abe Tunnison, Deputy Director, called me in
and said, “Look, we’ve got all of these problems and we need to
bring someone in to give P&RC a new image and a new name.”
So, they brought Jack Berryman in who had little or no knowledge
about the program. You know, the old problems of bringing in an
outsider. The field was not that happy and he had many problems.
Jack and his wife, Juanita, were very nice people and I got to know
them well. However shortly after he took over he developed a
drinking problem. This lasted for two or three months. This caused
the Service and me many problems as you did not know when he
would show up, and we were having lots of meeting with Congress
at that time. He would come to work for only a few days off and on
over 3 or 4 month period. He later straightened up and became a
very valued employee of the Service
JG: Did he come from another Federal Agency? Jack Berryman?
WN: No! Jack Berryman was the President of the International
Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies. That’s where he was
then and he had been President of the Wildlife Society. Before that
he was an Extension Specialist out of Utah State University. He
would come in the office once in awhile for a day here, or a half a
day there. We were isolated from the main office who were located
in the Department of Interior building while we were in the Wyatt
building at 14th and New York Avenue
.
About that time I became the Deputy Regional Director in
Albuquerque rather than the Division Chief. I worked under a man
by the name of Bill Crummus for 3 years. Bill got sick and had to
retire at quite a young age and then I was acting Regional Director
for 6 or 8 months. Rogers C.B. Morton, became Secretary of the
Interior in 1971 and he made me his first super grade appointment.
JG: Wasn’t this about the time that you also had kind of a
reorganization within the Predator and Rodent Program and
changed your name to Animal Damage Control?
WN: That was one of the reasons they brought in Jack Berryman.
He was to reorganize the Predator and Rodent Program and give it
a new name. After he left they came up with the name Animal
Damage Control. Now these activities have been transferred out of
the Fish and Wildlife Service and to the Department of
Agriculture. I think if I had not retired I would have tried to keep it
in the Fish and Wildlife Service where we would have maintained
a control over it. Now…I do not know whether it’s good or bad,
being in Agriculture.
JG: Rogers Morton was the new a Secretary of Interior, and has
now appointed you to be the Regional Director in Albuquerque.
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WN: Yes this was as a GS-16 at that time. About two years later
they changed it to a GS-17 or a GS-18. Later Director Spencer
Smith came out to Albuquerque and tried to convince me to come
back and be his Deputy in Washington. He said if I would, he’d do
everything possible to get me to be the next Director. He said he
was going to definitely retire in three years. But my wife was very
ill at that time with MS and I was already at the top of the salary
scale. I made as much as the Director, and at that time the
government did not pay moving expenses when you retired like
they do now for super grades. My wife was just too ill.
Interior Secretary Rogers C.B. Morton was with our Field
Committee on the Colorado River and I said to him, “Mr.
Secretary, if you weren’t here we’d probably have a cocktail at
lunch.” He answered, “Bill, I’d like to have joined you. I’d like
you to think I’m drunk instead of stupid on these trips”. (Laughs).
He was a big person and very nice to travel with. .
I am going back a little, when I went in that Departmental training,
about 1954. My first assignment was for 4 months in Congressman
Stewart Udall's office, and I got to meet the future Secretary. He
was a former Congressman from St. Johns, Arizona. He was in a
hurry one night and asked me to come to the back of his office. He
wanted to change his clothes as he had a meeting to go to.” I went
in while he changed his clothes and we talked. Later, he had all of
these hearings in Congress and discussions with special interest
groups on use of the poison 1080. Fortunately, he came from St.
Johns, Arizona, where there are lots of sheep and cattle. It is where
coyotes were really a big problem, and we had lots of control
programs in that part of his state.
I got to know a lot of important people in Interior and Congress
because of working on the predator and rodent control programs. It
was a good experience testifying before Congress and various
organizations explaining the use of control methods, especially
1080.
JG: You noted earlier that you were a member of the Washington
Biologist Field Club?
WN: Yes, It was a great honor to be a member this organization.
The Washington Biologist Field Club, membership was by
invitation only, which was limited to 50 resident people, many
being very notable world wide scientists. Then it was all men, now
the have women members. The club owns an island in the Potomac
River. You can see it from a bridge as you take the freeway around
the city. They recently gave it to the U.S. Park Service with the
understanding the Club can use it in perpetuity. They were afraid
they could no longer protect it from all the tourists. To get to it you
had to take a boat across a little piece of the water. It has an the old
cabin and is a a great place. I would take the family out for a
picnic. Each year the club holds an annual oyster bake and a shad
roast with all the members and lots to drink.
JG: As Regional Director in Albuquerque. That was the last 10
years before your retired?
WN: Right. I was a Deputy Regional Director 3 years before that. I
had an interesting experience before I was appointed Regional
Director of the Fish and Wildlife Services. The Department of
Interior had a Commissioner in the Washington Office. He was out
of Alaska, appointed by Secretary Hickel who had been Governor
of Alaska. When the administration changed Hickel lost his job.
The Commissioner came to Albuquerque and declared himself
Regional Director. I talked to Director Spencer Smith. He said,
“Hell, no”, so I gave him a small office down the hall. I did not
give him my office or any help. He stayed there for about 4 or 5
months and I don't know if he was even paid. I gave him a few
special assignments, when I was appointed Regional Director. He
finally gave up and went back to Alaska, but it was a trying time,
especially for my wife. Here was guy that came out here to take
my job. He told everybody that he was here to become the
Regional Director and met with some of the State Game fish
people and told them such.
JG: Let’s talk about a chapter in your life with the Fish and
Wildlife Service; let’s talk about the Order of the Yellow Dogs.
How did that come about?
WN: The Yellow Dogs was well established when I went back to
Washington during my training days, and practically everybody in
this Service, all the hierarchy of the Service, belonged to it,
although it was run strictly by the Predator and Rodent Control
program people. Many in the Secretary’s office would come out to
these big, big National meetings and would be speakers then they
would go through the Yellow Dog ceremony and become members
of the Yellow Dog. It was just a social organization where there
was lots of friendship and booze, and snacks and things like that. It
was all male at that time. I see now where women are members,
but I don’t know how active it is.
People from refuges and fish hatcheries all belonged to it. I don’t
think it went down to their field much, except if they were around
Denver at the time, or wherever we’d hold these big National
meetings, they’d all come to the big party.
JG: I’ve heard really some wild stories about the initiation
process.
WN: About the initiation process - they’d make the room dark and
the initiates lined up and would go around a circle and each one of
the old members would do some little thing, and at the end they’d
have a squirt gun of water - - - like a dog lifting its leg.! That was
the final act of the initiation.
It was quite a deal. Everybody looked forward to it. I don’t believe
they hold those big National meetings like that anymore where
they bring everybody together. I’ve got a big folder of one we had
out in Denver. I was in charge of the Resolutions Committee and
we thanked the Director for allowing it. We thanked the Hotel for
allowing it. We thanked everybody. We thanked the Regional
Directors for letting the people come to it. It was expensive, you
know, that many people out on per diem for a week, but they’d
bring in good speakers and college professors.
JG: Back to the element of the Yellow Dogs…what were the
officers called?
WN: Chief Cur, Leader of the Mongrels, Custodian of the Bone
and Custodian of the License Tag. It was a big party.
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JG: A social organization that also had…sounded like it had a
professional aspect to it.
WN: Yes. And, as I say, everybody in P&RC were members. Most
of the leadership in all the divisions of the Fish and Wildlife
Service belonged. Most of law enforcement belonged. Everybody
in the Denver Research Center were members of the Yellow Dog.
The Denver Research Center was the big thing for the Division of
Predator and Rodent Control. In fact, our money supported most of
the Denver Research Center at that time. I would guess 90% of
their work had to do with research on control. A man by the name
of Weldon Robinson found 1080. 1080 got its name by being the
1080 product tested.
The P&RC meetings were all very professional. They had very
professional speakers and they usually lasted about a week. I was
asked to speak when I was living in Kansas to the faculty of the
University of Kansas, Department of Biology, and Dr. Raymond
Hall, a real noted Biologist, introduces me, he said, “This is Bill
Nelson, with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Biological
Survey” or something like that…”and he is a practical Biologist.” I
think that described me about as good or better any description I
ever received when I was introduced. He was against 1080. All the
college professors were against 1080 poison. They never
understood it.
Now, they are trying to bring prairie dogs back, They were a big
nuisance to ranchers and that is why they were such a big item in
the budget. Most all ranchers wanted prairie dogs and coyotes
controlled. One time when I was State Director in Oklahoma, I got
a call from the Division Chief. in Washington. He said there’s a
move on in Congress to outlaw 1080, and asked, “Is there anyway
you can help to get it stopped?” I called Boots Adams who was
Chairman of the Phillips Petroleum Company, the biggest
company in Oklahoma. After I explained my call, he said, “Meet
me at my ranch for breakfast at 6:00 tomorrow morning”. I met
him up in Nowater County and we talked for a few minutes and I
told him about the problem. He got on the phone and he said, “Get
me Jerry Kerr.” Senator Kerr, the US Senator from Oklahoma at
that time, was probably one of the most powerful Senators in the
whole Senate. He talked to the Senator and he told him what we
wanted. Jerry said, “Don’t worry, I’ll have that killed by
tomorrow” and sure enough, he did! Politics, bang-bang!
Boots Adams had these high grade cattle on his ranch up there, and
he wanted the coyotes killed, and he knew 1080 worked real good,
and he didn’t want a bunch of do-gooders telling him he couldn’t
use it. That was the way it was all over the West. The big wealthy,
ranchers wanted coyotes controlled, and they had good contacts in
the State, and Federal legislatures and they could get lot of control.
JG: So, you spent your career…you spent your career now coming
up through the Predator and Rodent Control Program renamed
Animal Damage Control. Who were some of the other Regional
Directors at that time that you were with?
WN: All the Regional Directors at that time came up through
Predator and Rodent Control programs. They were the leaders in
the Fish & Wildlife Service. There was Ira Gabrielson, John
Gatlin, Paul Quick, Leo Lathe and…uh…oh, hell, can’t think of
the others! Early on I believe all the Regional Director came up
through the control programs.
JG: During your career is there anybody that you can identify that
was really helpful to you, that was a real mentor…or…someone
who you respect?
WN: I think it was Ted Cates who was the P&RC Supervisor in
Albuquerque. He was a great motivator. Then, in the last number
of years, Noble Beuell, was the Assistant Director in Washington.
He kind of took me under his wing and brought me along.
Unfortunately, Noble died when he was the Assistant Director
from a heart attack. One time, while in Washington as Acting
Chief, I got a call from the Assistant Secretary’s office. I went
there with Noble and Paul Quick and Deputy Director Abe
Tunnison. He was a defeated Senator from Missouri…I can’t think
of his name…when walked in the door he said, “You are fired
right now”. ‘Abe Tunnison - did you ever know Abe Tunnison? He
was a great guy. I liked Abe. Abe says, “Whoa…wait a minute,
Mr. Secretary, what’s this all about?” And he said, “Your man
working in Texas is Bill Fitzwater. He met with a bunch of
livestock people in Texas and told them if they wanted to get bird
poisoning approved to go straight to the politicians and stay away
from the hierarchy of the Interior Department. You’re fired for
hiring him.” So we talked to him for awhile, and Abe being an
excellent operator, told him what we would do and when we left
we still had our jobs!
There was another time I had been gone on a field trip for a couple
of weeks and was walking down the hall and I ran into him and
said, “Abe, I understand their is an opening in Albuquerque an
asked if I was to late to apply for it?" He said if you want it you
should apply, and about a week later they gave me the
appointment.
One of the hardest jobs I ever had while I was in Washington was
when the Assistant Director Lansing Parker died while hunting
turkey. I had camped and hunted with him a few times. He died of
a heart attack, and John Gottschalk and Abe Tunnison called me in
and asked me to speak at the funeral on behalf of the Service. You
know, here is a good friend that just died, a person who I had been
working with, and you knew all the people from Interior and all the
conservation people would be there. It was tough assignment.
JG: Did you come across people in the Fish and Wildlife Service
that you wouldn’t care to ever see again?
WN: Oh…well this guy from this…that came to try to get my job
in Albuquerque (chuckles) I…I had no love for him. He’s the only
one, but most of them were all good friends and if I was successful
at all, my whole success was being able to hire good people. I had
some real good people in fish hatcheries, in refuges, in law
enforcement, and all. I felt so, so confident in the people I had.
They were excellent.
I’ll have to get the book, but my refuge supervisor went on to
become Refuge Chief. My fish hatchery supervisor went and
become Supervisor Fishery Chief. My realty man went in and
became Realty Chief. Dick went into become Assistant Director –
Dick Smith.
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JG: Was Lynn Greenwalt among those?
WN: Greenwalt worked for me as an Assistant. I remember at a
party we had been talking to his wife Judy. He was the Assistant
Refuge Manager at the time. I told Judy “Just give Lynn a little
longer. I think he’ll be the Director pretty soon” and she says,
“Well, I hope so. We need the money” or something like that and
about 4 or 5, 6 years, Lynn was the Director. He had a lot of
capabilities.
JG: Yeah, he was the last regular professional Fish and Wildlife
Service Director for quite a spell until more recently.
WN: When I was at a training assignment, the Bureau of Land
Management always went out and got a political appointee as its
Director, and I felt how lucky the Fish and Wildlife Service was to
get a professional at that time.
Back to Jack Berryman... While I was the Regional Director in
Albuquerque, Jack was State Director of Arizona at the Game and
Fish Department. These State Directors were appointed on 5 year
terms. He came to me and said, “Bill, my appointment”, it was
when he was on his second one, he said, “I don’t think they’re
gonna renew it”, and he said, “ I’d sure like to go to work for the
Fish and Wildlife Service. He said, “Could you get me in?” I said,
“Well, Jack, you’ll have to get on the Civil Service register, and
we may be able to find a vacancy on a refuge.” Just laughing and
he said, “Oh, hell…all my experience…you gotta at least get me a
12 or so” and I said, “I just couldn’t put you ahead of our full time,
long time employees” and he was a little bitter about it.
JG: And this was after his bout with alcoholism?
WN: This was while he was still a State Director. I don't believe
he had a problem at that time. Then he went and became President
of the International Association.
Spencer Smith was a good Director. He went out to Denver when
he retired as Director to work on a new organization when Lynn
Greenwalt became Director. I though the Area Offices were a
fiasco. When I was first appointed Regional Director, the Region
consisted of Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New
Mexico.
Then they reduced it to Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and
Arizona Then we had two Area Offices, one in Texas and in
Arizona. It was a small Region anyway, and it was just too much
overhead. I worked to help get rid of the area office. I was against
it from the start.
JG: Well, it lasted 5 years and then they went back to the way it
was.
WN: That was a good move to go back.
JG: What other stories do you have in your career that you would
like to have for posterity? You must have had some really fun
times? You talk about the Yellow Dogs, and you talk about some
of your trips, like with Rogers C.B. Morton? You have some more
good ‘ole war stories to tell? Memories?
WN: Oh, I’ve got these on these sheets of paper. You want them,
instead of putting them on the machine there.
JG: Well, we’d like to have them as part of your W.O. Nelson
archives file. I’ll be glad to take them.
A lot of people have said working for the Fish and Wildlife Service
was just like having a big family all around the country. Did you
find that, too, in your career Bill?
WN: Oh, yeah. Yeah. We had parties together. Our wives had a
Wives Club in Albuquerque. I thought it was a good organization.
Yes it had some ups-and-downs. I stopped some of our realty
people from flying their own plane and collecting mileage because
I was afraid of an airplane wreck and the tremendous damages they
could claim. This was on the advice of my solicitor. I took my
solicitor, the Department’s solicitor, with me on practically every
meeting I had because we were having closures on grazing.
Did I tell you about the story with Senator Montoya? It was the
Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, south of
Albuquerque where we allowed grazing in a limited amount. The
damn guy would keep putting on twice or three times as much
cattle as we allowed and so we canceled his permit. He went to
U.S. Senator Montoya of course and they came in and met with
me. I asked the Senator for his recommendation. The Senator just
listened and I said, “If he will agree to run the amount we
recommend, the refuge manager will allow him to graze there, but
if he doesn’t, we will cancel it”. Senator Montoya who was
powerful man in the Senate and had been there a long time, said to
the rancher, “Will you agree to that?” He said, “Yes sir, if they’ll
let me do this”. Well within 6 months or so, he was back putting on
many more head of cattle on than we agreed so I called on the
Senator. His office was just 2 doors down from mine in
Albuquerque and I asked to meet with him again, and I told him,
“Senator, he broke his agreement so we’re canceling his permit.
We’re not going to allow any cattle to graze on the Bosque del
Apache.” The Senator said, “That’s fine. He agreed in front of you
and me that he would do this and if he didn’t keep his word so go
ahead and cancel it”. We canceled the permit. It was tough to keep
the Spanish-American people from taking down the fences and
keeping their cattle out as they thought they owned the land
because their early ancestors did.
JG: There was a story that I heard years ago that was attributed to
coming out of your Albuquerque Regional Office, and it had to do
with a Regional Director…I don’t know…maybe you… but
anyway, there was a general meeting…a hearing…on the use of
1080. At this public meeting, a lady that got up and was saying
that the Fish and Wildlife Service ought to not trap these coyotes
or to poison them. She made her pleading statement in front of this
hostile audience with great oratory about man’s responsibility for
kindness to animals and all that. She ended with a plan, a request,
that the Fish & Wildlife Service should capture the coyotes and
give them birth control pills…you know, let them fade away
naturally, rather than killing them. Somebody jumped up or it was
the Regional Director said, “Lady, you got this wrong. The
coyotes aren’t having sex with the sheep, they’re killing and eating
them”.
7
WN: (Laughs).
JG: Is there any truth to that story?
WN: (Chuckles) No…but it’s probably a rancher that would get up
and say that, not a Fish and Wildlife Service employee. P&RC did
try something like that one summer here in Idaho, when I was in
Albuquerque. They placed a sex deterrent in a lard cube bait and
spread it a over part of Southern Idaho desert to see if we could
stop coyote breeding, but it wasn’t successful. Yes, but we did try
it…we tried everything. Yes. We weren’t interested in killing
coyotes, we were only interested in stopping predation on sheep
and calves. Now they are bringing predators back so they’re will
go through the whole damn thing again (chuckles). Bringing
wolves back and you know if you got wolves, they will eat and
they will eat what’s available… They’re just opportunist.
Whatever is available they’re kill and eat it. You can’t blame the
wolves.
JG: Bill, I’m sure you saw a lot of changes within Fish and
Wildlife Service over the course of your career, and I noted here
that you got involved a bit with endangered species and whooping
crane recovery.
WN: Oh yes, that was quite a deal. We mated and planted
whooping cranes at Gray’s Lake in Idaho and they wintered at
Bosque del Apache Refuge in New Mexico. We had an agreement
with the Audubon Society that we could still hunt snow geese.
Snow geese and whooping cranes look a lot alike. They both have
white bodies and black tips on the end of their wings but the cranes
were much bigger with longer legs and wings. We were afraid that
if we started the project that Audubon would demand that we stop
hunting snow geese and the Refuge was the only place in New
Mexico where snow geese wintered. Things went well with the
snow geese…we hunted them with no problems…no one shot a
whooping crane. They had loud speakers that said, “whooping
crane in the area, no shooting” and stuff like that. The Whoopers
didn’t survive, they would hit power lines, or coyotes would kill
them. The a project was discontinued when I retired. I still believe
it was good one and by working on it they could made it work.
However I am now an honorary life member of the Whooping
Crane Association, because of that work.
JG: So, some of the early recovery work for whooping cranes, you
started while you were Regional Director?
WN: Right. Right. The experiment at Grays Lake – Bosque
Refuge also down to Aransas National Wildlife Refuge on Gulf
Coast in Texas. That’s a very good refuge down there. We had a
lot of great refuges along the Gulf coast down in Texas. We had a
lot of great refuge managers. Yes, real dedicated! Really great
people!
JG: I’m basically, basically through asking the questions, Bill. Is
there anything that you wanted to add, or reminisce, or talk about
on your career? People…incidents?
WN: I worked long hours. It wasn’t an 8 to 5 shift. I’d go in
usually at 7:00 and work on weekends…my wife kept track of me
once…I was at meetings or attending different things for 10
straight weekends in a row. Game and Fish organizations would
hold weekend meetings or sportsmen events as group meetings. I’d
go on weekends to speak or listen and find out what was
happening, but it was enjoyable work. You know, some of these
sportsmen groups would get so wild or off on some other
deals…and…yes. And, they always wanted to meet on Saturdays
and Sundays
Oh…and I used to love to hunt ducks and pheasants myself. I tell
you, I took a couple of beatings at some of the commission
meetings in Texas. They didn’t always agree with the Fish and
Wildlife Service, but all you could do was support the Service.
Most of the other state commissions were pretty good. They’d go
along pretty good but Texas never did much (chuckles). They did
appoint me an Honorary Game Warden for the State of Texas.
JG: Thank you, Bill for taking the time out and talking with us.
WN: Oh…my pleasure. I enjoyed it. I always enjoyed talking to
groups while I was working.
8
STORIES OF REMINISCING
A VISIT TO THE FORT APACHE INDIAN
RESERVATION - PROBABLY IN 1943.
At that time, I was the Assistant State Supervisor for Wildlife
Services, U S Fish and Wildlife Service for Arizona. The Service
was doing most of the fish and wildlife work on Indian
reservations. On the White River Apache Reservation; in the
beautiful White Mountains, the Service had a trout fish hatchery.
The Tribe asked Wildlife Services to help with bears that were
killing their purebred white faced cattle. This was the Tribe’s most
important enterprise. The Indians had great superstition about
killing bears but did not care if others did.
I was assigned to check the hunter’s progress and make
sure the project was going right. The hunter assigned to do the
work, Russell Culbreth was an excellent man for the job. He had a
big old mule to carry his traps and other gear. The Tribe paid
Russell’s salary. He and his family were provided a nice home at a
remote school and he invited me to bring JoEllen, Judy and Jacque
with me. JoEllen was fascinated and a little scared, Judy four or
five was very curious and loved to play with the Indian children
who lived at the school. As it was warm, Jacque wore only diapers
and she fascinated the Indian women. Their children wore only a
top or shirt, no bottom. The Indian ladies laughed and thought it
was crazy to soil a diaper, and then wash it. It made their day. In
those days no one heard of disposable diapers. The small babies
were in cradle boards. The first we had ever seen.
One night just before we went to bed there was a knock on the
door and there stood an adult Indian women with her face so
beaten that you could not recognize her. They asked if we would
take her to the hospital in White River. Russell and I did and when
we returned we found out that she did not belong to the Indian
group living at the school but had taken up with one of the men at
a bar and came home with him. The other women at the school
apparently had used their cowboy boot heels to stomp the flesh
from her face and do other damage. I understand she lived.
I shot my first and only bear that Russell had it in a trap. This
project lasted for a year or so. At another time Russell dressed out
a bear for eating and brought some to the office. We invited some
friends over to taste a roast and most of them liked it, some did not.
We only cooked it once. Some at the office thought it good and
others never wanted it again. You may recall in reading about early
hunters, they always ate bear when they could.
When growing up Dad had bear grease at hand for us to treat our
hiking boots claiming it gave them excellent protection and made
them water proof.
APPEARANCE BEFORE THE SENATE
APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE
I had just been transferred to Washington D.C, with the U. S, Fish
and Wildlife Service as the Assistant Division Chief, Wildlife
Services, in the spring of 1963. One day as the Acting Division
Chief I was asked to appear before the Senate Appropriation
Committee with Jim Stevenson, in charge of legislation for the
Service and the man in charge of legislation for the Department of
Interior. Having never been to the Capitol I was apprehensive but
not too worried as I was not to speak and only to be there as a back
up authority on the subject.
A Congressman from California had requested the Senate take
away the tax imposed on netting used to cover trees and other fruit
to protect them from bird damage. His request was being heard
before the Ways and Means Committee chaired by Wilbur Mills’s
from Missouri. This is the most powerful committee in Congress.
When we arrived, the Military were requesting funds and went on
and on. My companions decided the Military would be on for a
long time and went for coffee. They told me to stay just in case we
were called. No sooner had they left when Chairman Mills called
for the Dept. of Interior. I stood up and told him others were here
but not in the room and he said for me to take a seat and they
would start. I raised my right arm and took the oath. Chairman
Mills was abrupt and made it clear he was a very important and
busy man. Chairman Mills asked two or three questions from
information he had been provided. Chairman Mills then allowed
the Congressman from California to ask me a few questions about
the large money crop lost that was caused from bird damage. Then
a Senator, a member of the committee, asked about the prospects
for the duck hunting that fall. Then another member asked about
ducks in his state. Fortunately I had just set in on a Director’s
briefing on the waterfowl surveys in Alaska, Canada and the
prairie states. Then Chairman Mills cut if off and said to me that
would be all and thanked me for coming.
Jim and the Department man came back about five or ten minutes
later and could not believe I had testified. They were two worried
men fearful that they may lose their jobs over this goof. However
nothing happened.
I wished I had picked up a copy of the printed procedures but did
not realize they were available at that time. This also gave me my
first introduction to the famous Senate bean soup in the Senate
dining room then open to the public.
9
WORLD WAR II - MY WORST NIGHT
I was the postmaster at a US prison camp for German Prisoners
and it was one of the plush assignments. This was new camp
established to hold German prisoner that were surrendering very
fast towards the end of the war. It was established in fields along
the Rhine River with no facilities at all. We were housed in an
Underberg factory. This factory made stomach tonic. My post
office was on the ground floor so to be available to every one. I
scrounged a nice desk from a paper office and furniture from a nice
home. While in the home the two prisoners I had to load the
furniture ask if they could go in the basement to see if there was
any canned fruit. I said O. K. and in a few minutes they returned
with out any fruit but told me there were two dead German soldiers
down there. I checked it out, and then reported it, so they could
send some one out to collect them. I picked up a German prisoner
each day to clean the post office. I used the same person most of
the time. He was a college graduate in engineering and learned to
speak English while working in Mexico. I also fed him.
With no prison fences to start with, no shelter, no cooking facilities
to feed the prisoners and the soldiers not trained to guard prisoners
they were very much over worked. One day we were called and
ask if we, who were not guards, would give the guards a break and
help them that night. A friend and whom I have forgotten his name
but I believe it was Johnny. We agreed to guard the railroad station
as no trains were to arrive that night. As it was a small town with a
small station it had only one light at the door leading to the waiting
room. About midnight an unscheduled train loaded with German
war prisoners arrived. It was a long train of cattle cars as full of
prisoners as it would hold.
The guards unloaded the prisoners and lined them in a column of
about 4’s and it seemed like a half block long. We told them the
prison compound was down the road about a mile or so and they
told us no way. They said they had been on the train for over 10
hours and were dead tired. They were ours and got on the train and
pulled out. Johnny and I talked it over and decided he would go for
help and I would stay and guard the prisoners. He took off on the
run and I ask for some one who could speak English. One
volunteered and he and I walked down the row and I had him tell
them we had machine guns located out on the dark and if any made
a break they would start shooting the bunch; I then went back and
stood under the light with the safety off my carbine thinking I
would get 6 of them before they got me. Here I was, one person on
a very dark night guarding a large train load of dirty, tried, hungry
prisoners by my self. It seemed like forever before the trucks and
the guards arrive.
It’s a night I will never forget even though it happened in the
spring of 1945, a long time ago. I have forgotten what town it was
located in or the name of the compound or the unit I was in but I
haven’t forgotten crossing the Rhine River and some of the early
hardships before we settled at the prison camp.
LONDON BRIDGE – WORLD WAR II
GERMAN ROCKETS
My brother Ray and I met in London during World War 11 and
one evening, just after dark, while standing on London Bridge
some one shouted to be quiet. We then heard putt, putt, putt and
then the loudest explosion you can imagine. The impact was
enough to shake the bridge so we thought it hit right beside it. We
hurried and got off the bridge. The next morning we learned from
the newspaper, a German V-2 rocket hit quite a distance from us
causing a great deal of destruction.
Hitler told the World he was developing a new device capable for
him to win the war. The V-2 rocket was to be the tool but they did
not have time to fully develop it before the war was over. The
Russians captured many German scientist but the Americans were
able to capture Dr. Wernher von Braun, the chief German rocket
scientist and a number of his colleagues. They brought them to the
United States and stationed them at the White Sand Missile Range
just out of El Paso, Texas along with a number of unfired V-2
rockets for additional testing.
In the Spring on 1948 I spent two weeks at Fort Bliss in El Paso,
Texas for my reserve officer training assignment. The war had just
ended in 1945 and Dr. Wernher von Braun was in full swing there.
He spent a day with us [about 20 officers] and explained the U S
plans for landing on the moon which happened almost the way he
describe it about twenty years later. He also explained rockets to us
and shot a V-2 rocket off while we were there. The rocket started
off course and they shut it off causing a loud explosion when the
unburned oxygen hit the earth. Dr. von Braun, a very brilliant man,
later became the United States lead scientist for our space program.
In the late 1960 or the early 1970's the old London Bridge was torn
down in London, England and the stones were kept in tack then
shipped to Lake Havasu on the lower Colorado River in Arizona.
The exact London Bridge was rebuilt with the old stones over part
of the lake as a tourist attraction. Before the Corps of Engineers
could give permission to allow water to circulate under the bridge
they needed approval from the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service. As
the Colorado River covered many States, the U. S. Fish and
Wildlife Services Regional Office in Albuquerque, New Mexico
was the controlling federal agency for environmental issues
covering the River. As Regional Director I signed the letter giving
the U. S. Fish and Wildlife approval. This is the same bridge my
brother and I had our near life threatening miss during the war.

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Oral History
of
W.O. “Bill” Nelson
Interviewed by:
Jerry Grover & Bob Ruesink
September 22, 2009
ABSTRACT: At one time in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Predator and Rodent Control Program
was the single largest budget item of the Service and employed more than half of all Service employees,
and all the Regional Directors had their beginnings in this program. W.O. ‘Bill’ Nelson from his earliest days
working in the field of wildlife resources was part of this effort. His many assignments throughout areas
west of the Mississippi River and the Washington Office challenged him on other multiple conservation
management issues until he retired in January 1980 as part of the Fish & Wildlife Service Directorate as
the Regional Director for the Southwest Region in Albuquerque, NM for the final 10 years of his career.
While thoroughly a supporter of the ‘gopher choker’ program and its use of the poison 1080 he has also
been recognized for his efforts in the recovery of America’s conservation bird, the whooping crane. Bill
lives in his home in Twin Falls, Idaho with his daughter Jackie nearby.
ORDER of PRESENTATION
• Abstract
• Transcribed Oral History
• Stories of Reminiscing
THE ORAL HISTORY
JG: This is Jerry Grover, a retired Ecological Services & Fishery
supervisor in the Portland Regional Office and I am in Twin Falls,
Idaho, to do an oral history on W.O. “Bill” Nelson regarding his
career with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. With me today is
Bob Reusink, a retired project leader from the Boise Ecological
Services Field Office. Bill where were you born and raised?
WN: I was born in American Fork, Utah in 1921. I’m 88 years old.
JG: When you retired, what was your position and where were you
located?
WN: When I retired, I was the Southwest Regional Director at the
Fish & Wildlife Service Regional Office in Albuquerque, New
Mexico.
JG: How did you get interested in the field of Fish and Wildlife?
WN: My father worked for the Fish and Wildlife Service back
when it was called the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife, in
the Division of Predator and Rodent Control. I worked one
summer for the Forest Service while I was in college, and then the
other two summers I worked for the Fish and Wildlife Service
doing rodent control work in the high Uintah Mountains in Utah.
Then, I went into the Army in World War II. After I got out, I
completed my degree at Utah State University and was hired by
the Fish and Wildlife Service in 1948 right after I graduated. My
first job was a joint project with the Utah State Game and Fish
Department and the Fish and Wildlife Service on an
antelope/coyote study in the western desert in Utah. We lived at
the U.S. Forest Service Ranger Station about 50 miles west of
Milford, UT.
In 1948, a severe winter weather hit the west desert across the
country. A number of livestock froze to death or starved. We had
one daughter, Judy, who became ill and my wife called the nearest
doctor in Fillmore and while she was talking to him the line went
dead. He went down to the drug store and told the druggist that
Judy was sick and he could not get any medicine to her. There
were some national newspaper reporters there, and they picked the
story up and it made national news. A national commentator came
on that night and said, “ I have sad news tonight. The Nelson Baby
at the Forest Service Desert Range Experiment Station in Western
Utah is dying of malnutrition because no one can reach her
because of the snowstorm.” Of course, we had enough food to last
us a month, and you know how a kid is, the next day she was well.
We had no TV, no radio, and no power out there, so we did not
know all of this was making national news. It was a great worry to
our parents. This went on for a week before the Forest Service got
an emergency radio to us, and many people were making all kinds
of ways to rescue us. The doctor in Milford was a paramedic
during World War II, and he said that he would get a parachute and
parachute in to us, to treat her. When we found out about it we
located a Forest Service emergency radio and told him that Judy
was well, and not to come. In a couple of days, he got skis for his
airplane out of Wyoming and flew in. We told him to go as we did
not want to feed him also. We were snowbound for 20-some days.
When we left, I stopped by the doctor’s office in Milford and
asked him how much I owed him. He said, “not a thing”. He said,
2
“If I get away from this without being reprimanded for all those
false stories I’ll just be lucky”. Then, I went to Salt Lake. I worked
out of that office for 2-3 months before I was transferred to
Phoenix, Arizona. When I was in Phoenix a month or two later, I
read in the paper where the Doctor got some national award for
heroism for going out there saving the Nelson baby.
JG: What grade were you hired in as a GS grade?
WN: It was a SP.
JG: A what?
WN: SP-6?. Yep or a SP-5!
JG: I don’t know that classification …That’s before my time.
WN: SP is Sub-Professional, a classification. And when I went to
Phoenix, I was hired as a GS-5 Wildlife Biologist.
JG: With a college degree?
WN: It was the lowest grade possible for a professional series. We
damn near starved to death on that wage. I got my big check every
two weeks and would take it into the bank and cash it. This one
time I was late getting to the bank so I went to the grocery store
and a kid was checking me out. I gave him my check and he said
“Oh! I see you make the same every week that I make!” That was
two weeks as a GS-5. Salaries were low right after the war. It was
a while before they started raising them to make them more equal
with the private sector. I was in Phoenix for about a year working
as an Assistant to the State’s District Agent for Predator and
Rodent Control. I worked all over the State.
I then was lucky to be selected to go to Washington, D.C. as a
Department of Interior trainee on a 9 month program. However,
they asked me to stay for a year to work on a special program. That
was in 1954. I spent four months working in the Secretary of the
Interior’s office and four months in the Bureau of Land
Management (BLM), working on different things. It was a good
assignment. At the time the BLM did everything under the sun to
get me to go to work for them at a higher grade. Then, the Fish and
Wildlife Service finally gave me a GS-7. You know, living in
Washington as a GS-6 with a child is pretty hard to do.
Then they sent me back to Phoenix. I was in Phoenix for about
three or four months and they transferred me to Manhattan,
Kansas, where I opened an office in cooperation with the Kansas
Farm Bureau and Kansas State University. I ran that office for
about a year. After a year, Dorr Green, who was the Division
Chief, come by and asked me what I thought about the job and I
said, “Kansas State University does not want to cooperate with the
Fish and Wildlife Service. They want me to become an assistant
professors and run the same program through the college.”
I was still doing strictly predator control work on coyotes as the
target species. Kansas had an unbelievable population. They had
never been controlled. One time we used 1080. It was the best
poison available but it got such a bad name that we had to stop
using it. It was the most specific type of poison if you wanted to
kill coyotes, but it would also kill dogs and foxes. You only put out
one bait every six miles. The coyotes range is far, you could
control them, but it would kill the dogs that ate on the bait giving it
the bad name.
We would bait a carcass - 99% were horses, and use 1080 in a
liquid form. You would insert the poison in the meat. Then you
take the meat, like a leg out and tie it down with a stake so it
couldn’t be carried away, and then leave it out for three or four
months. Then you would go back and get it and either burn it or
bury it, so it would not be eaten by anything else. That’s what got
me in good with Nat Reed, who was then Assistant Secretary for
Fish, Wildlife and Parks in the Department of the Interior. In all of
this controversy, Nat relied on me a great deal. I was flying back
and forth to Washington every time I would turn around to meet
with Congressional delegations, with Nat Reed, and others who
were objecting to the use of it. Of course we found that we had to
stop its use because of all the objections.
I went to Oklahoma City to work as the State Supervisor for
Oklahoma and Kansas District and was there for about four years. I
had about 35 or so trappers working in Oklahoma but none in
Kansas. P&RC and had nothing going on in Kansas except
meeting with the Farm Bureau and doing some extension-type
work. Then, I moved to Oklahoma City. I was told I would replace
old A.E. Gray who had been the State Supervisor for a long time.
He was very ineffective and they tried to get him to retire but he
was not willing to go. They had a law back then where you could
work until you were 70, if you proved to be capable. He hired a
lawyer to prove himself capable and he worked right up till he was
69 or so. After he retired I was the State Supervisor there for those
two states for about four years. I received a promotion to a GS-11.
Then the Regional Supervisor’s job in Minneapolis, Minnesota,
opened up, after Noble Beuell, who was then the Supervisor went
to Washington as a Division Chief. He recommended me for this
position. Dan Jantzen was the Regional Director in Minneapolis he
came down and asked me if I would take it. Albuquerque tried to
get me come over there as Assistant Regional Director, but I could
get a grade higher going to Minneapolis. It was good for me but
kind of tough on the family to keep moving. I stayed there for
about four years. While I was there, I supervised along with other
offices, an office in Purdue University that mainly experimented
with new rodent and bird control agents.
While we were there the Purdue office experimented with
Warfarin now used as a blood thinner world wide. They found out
that it would also kill rats and mice by over thinning their blood.
That’s where they came up with D-Con. Warfarin gets it name
from the Wisconsin Alumni Foundation. The Foundation sent me a
great big block of cheese that I divided up with the office in
Minneapolis. We did a lot of bird research controlling birds and it
was unbelievable. It scared the hell out of me. We had one guy,
Fitzwater was his name, he’d do anything to find out how to kill
nuisance birds. You know starlings are all right when you get 50 or
100 or 200 or 500, but when you get 4 or 5 million as some
Midwest towns did, they became a problem. Bill Fitzwater got to
where he could kill them or scare them away.
3
Histoplasmosis in birds was a big concern at the time. That was a
disease the city fathers had to deal with because of the massive
amounts of bird droppings on their streets. Fitzwater killed a lot of
birds experimenting with them. One time, when he was showing
Indianapolis fire department how to scare birds from a big bridge
going into town Fitzwater took his car or panel truck where he had
all these fireworks stored to scare the birds off the bridge. He had a
big cigar in his mouth and he dropped it down in the firecrackers.
We got a lot of publicity out of that!
JG: I’d like to step back just a moment and return to where you
alluded to your family was present here…where did you meet your
wife?
WN: I was going to Brigham Young University and she was in
high school, in Pleasant Grove, Utah. She was an extremely
brilliant young lady. She was the valedictorian. She was in the
school plays and I think of her as a beautiful young lady. She was
very talented. When I was working in Minneapolis, she developed
a system of using flannel boards to tell old classical children
stories to schools and on TV. She told these stories for money. Her
usual fee was $100.00 or $150.00 depending on the size of the
audience. She also told told these stories on public television.
When I was transferred to Washington D.C. she did some more of
the same in a number of the schools in that area. There she started
to develope MS, [multiple sclerosis] and she had to give it up. She
passed away about 8 years ago.
Judy, my oldest, retired 4 or 5 years ago as Deputy State Director
of the Bureau of Land Management in Portland, Oregon. My
second daughter, Jacque, teaches science here at the junior high in
Twin Falls, Idaho. My youngest daughter is an engineer and she
teaches engineering at Cal Poly (California Polytechnic State
University) in San Luis Obispo, California, so they have all been
very successful. They all take after their mother.
JG: Let’s go back to where you are in Minneapolis. When you
took the job in Minneapolis and you were a GS-12 now?
WN: That's right. I was a GS-11 in Oklahoma and became a GS-
12 as the Regional Supervisor in Minneapolis. Predator and Rodent
Control was a big thing in Region 2 but not here. Refuges
dominated the programs here in Region 3.
JG: But you stayed mainly in the Predator and Rodent Control
program, P&RC?
WN: Yes. About 4 years later I was asked to transfer to
Washington, D.C. by my former Regional Director Dan Jantzen in
Minneapolis who had just recently transferred to Washington, D.C
as the Director of the Service.
Earlier he had selected Noble Beuell as his Chief of the P&RC
program in Minneapolis. Then he moved Noble up to the Division
Chief for P&RC in Washington then very shortly as Assistant
Director for Wildlife. The new Director flew out to Minneapolis, I
think for 2 reasons. One, was to ask me to go to Washington, but
the other was to come and visit old friends. Anyway, a man by the
name of Cliff Presnell, was Chief of the P&RC Division. He had
transferred over from the National Park Service, and was not really
an old hand at predator and rodent control. They wanted to bring
someone in with field experience. Cliff was due to retire in 1 year,
and they asked if I would come in and be his assistant at the same
grade, and in 1 year, they would make me the Division Chief for
P&RC.
They put a lot of pressure on me to do it, so as soon as we could
get things in order we moved. In the meantime, in Washington,
D.C., the Predator and Rodent Control was getting much heat.
Director Dan Jantzen retired after being in that office for a year or
two. Then John Gottschalk came in as Director in 1970. When I
got there John and Abe Tunnison, Deputy Director, called me in
and said, “Look, we’ve got all of these problems and we need to
bring someone in to give P&RC a new image and a new name.”
So, they brought Jack Berryman in who had little or no knowledge
about the program. You know, the old problems of bringing in an
outsider. The field was not that happy and he had many problems.
Jack and his wife, Juanita, were very nice people and I got to know
them well. However shortly after he took over he developed a
drinking problem. This lasted for two or three months. This caused
the Service and me many problems as you did not know when he
would show up, and we were having lots of meeting with Congress
at that time. He would come to work for only a few days off and on
over 3 or 4 month period. He later straightened up and became a
very valued employee of the Service
JG: Did he come from another Federal Agency? Jack Berryman?
WN: No! Jack Berryman was the President of the International
Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies. That’s where he was
then and he had been President of the Wildlife Society. Before that
he was an Extension Specialist out of Utah State University. He
would come in the office once in awhile for a day here, or a half a
day there. We were isolated from the main office who were located
in the Department of Interior building while we were in the Wyatt
building at 14th and New York Avenue
.
About that time I became the Deputy Regional Director in
Albuquerque rather than the Division Chief. I worked under a man
by the name of Bill Crummus for 3 years. Bill got sick and had to
retire at quite a young age and then I was acting Regional Director
for 6 or 8 months. Rogers C.B. Morton, became Secretary of the
Interior in 1971 and he made me his first super grade appointment.
JG: Wasn’t this about the time that you also had kind of a
reorganization within the Predator and Rodent Program and
changed your name to Animal Damage Control?
WN: That was one of the reasons they brought in Jack Berryman.
He was to reorganize the Predator and Rodent Program and give it
a new name. After he left they came up with the name Animal
Damage Control. Now these activities have been transferred out of
the Fish and Wildlife Service and to the Department of
Agriculture. I think if I had not retired I would have tried to keep it
in the Fish and Wildlife Service where we would have maintained
a control over it. Now…I do not know whether it’s good or bad,
being in Agriculture.
JG: Rogers Morton was the new a Secretary of Interior, and has
now appointed you to be the Regional Director in Albuquerque.
4
WN: Yes this was as a GS-16 at that time. About two years later
they changed it to a GS-17 or a GS-18. Later Director Spencer
Smith came out to Albuquerque and tried to convince me to come
back and be his Deputy in Washington. He said if I would, he’d do
everything possible to get me to be the next Director. He said he
was going to definitely retire in three years. But my wife was very
ill at that time with MS and I was already at the top of the salary
scale. I made as much as the Director, and at that time the
government did not pay moving expenses when you retired like
they do now for super grades. My wife was just too ill.
Interior Secretary Rogers C.B. Morton was with our Field
Committee on the Colorado River and I said to him, “Mr.
Secretary, if you weren’t here we’d probably have a cocktail at
lunch.” He answered, “Bill, I’d like to have joined you. I’d like
you to think I’m drunk instead of stupid on these trips”. (Laughs).
He was a big person and very nice to travel with. .
I am going back a little, when I went in that Departmental training,
about 1954. My first assignment was for 4 months in Congressman
Stewart Udall's office, and I got to meet the future Secretary. He
was a former Congressman from St. Johns, Arizona. He was in a
hurry one night and asked me to come to the back of his office. He
wanted to change his clothes as he had a meeting to go to.” I went
in while he changed his clothes and we talked. Later, he had all of
these hearings in Congress and discussions with special interest
groups on use of the poison 1080. Fortunately, he came from St.
Johns, Arizona, where there are lots of sheep and cattle. It is where
coyotes were really a big problem, and we had lots of control
programs in that part of his state.
I got to know a lot of important people in Interior and Congress
because of working on the predator and rodent control programs. It
was a good experience testifying before Congress and various
organizations explaining the use of control methods, especially
1080.
JG: You noted earlier that you were a member of the Washington
Biologist Field Club?
WN: Yes, It was a great honor to be a member this organization.
The Washington Biologist Field Club, membership was by
invitation only, which was limited to 50 resident people, many
being very notable world wide scientists. Then it was all men, now
the have women members. The club owns an island in the Potomac
River. You can see it from a bridge as you take the freeway around
the city. They recently gave it to the U.S. Park Service with the
understanding the Club can use it in perpetuity. They were afraid
they could no longer protect it from all the tourists. To get to it you
had to take a boat across a little piece of the water. It has an the old
cabin and is a a great place. I would take the family out for a
picnic. Each year the club holds an annual oyster bake and a shad
roast with all the members and lots to drink.
JG: As Regional Director in Albuquerque. That was the last 10
years before your retired?
WN: Right. I was a Deputy Regional Director 3 years before that. I
had an interesting experience before I was appointed Regional
Director of the Fish and Wildlife Services. The Department of
Interior had a Commissioner in the Washington Office. He was out
of Alaska, appointed by Secretary Hickel who had been Governor
of Alaska. When the administration changed Hickel lost his job.
The Commissioner came to Albuquerque and declared himself
Regional Director. I talked to Director Spencer Smith. He said,
“Hell, no”, so I gave him a small office down the hall. I did not
give him my office or any help. He stayed there for about 4 or 5
months and I don't know if he was even paid. I gave him a few
special assignments, when I was appointed Regional Director. He
finally gave up and went back to Alaska, but it was a trying time,
especially for my wife. Here was guy that came out here to take
my job. He told everybody that he was here to become the
Regional Director and met with some of the State Game fish
people and told them such.
JG: Let’s talk about a chapter in your life with the Fish and
Wildlife Service; let’s talk about the Order of the Yellow Dogs.
How did that come about?
WN: The Yellow Dogs was well established when I went back to
Washington during my training days, and practically everybody in
this Service, all the hierarchy of the Service, belonged to it,
although it was run strictly by the Predator and Rodent Control
program people. Many in the Secretary’s office would come out to
these big, big National meetings and would be speakers then they
would go through the Yellow Dog ceremony and become members
of the Yellow Dog. It was just a social organization where there
was lots of friendship and booze, and snacks and things like that. It
was all male at that time. I see now where women are members,
but I don’t know how active it is.
People from refuges and fish hatcheries all belonged to it. I don’t
think it went down to their field much, except if they were around
Denver at the time, or wherever we’d hold these big National
meetings, they’d all come to the big party.
JG: I’ve heard really some wild stories about the initiation
process.
WN: About the initiation process - they’d make the room dark and
the initiates lined up and would go around a circle and each one of
the old members would do some little thing, and at the end they’d
have a squirt gun of water - - - like a dog lifting its leg.! That was
the final act of the initiation.
It was quite a deal. Everybody looked forward to it. I don’t believe
they hold those big National meetings like that anymore where
they bring everybody together. I’ve got a big folder of one we had
out in Denver. I was in charge of the Resolutions Committee and
we thanked the Director for allowing it. We thanked the Hotel for
allowing it. We thanked everybody. We thanked the Regional
Directors for letting the people come to it. It was expensive, you
know, that many people out on per diem for a week, but they’d
bring in good speakers and college professors.
JG: Back to the element of the Yellow Dogs…what were the
officers called?
WN: Chief Cur, Leader of the Mongrels, Custodian of the Bone
and Custodian of the License Tag. It was a big party.
5
JG: A social organization that also had…sounded like it had a
professional aspect to it.
WN: Yes. And, as I say, everybody in P&RC were members. Most
of the leadership in all the divisions of the Fish and Wildlife
Service belonged. Most of law enforcement belonged. Everybody
in the Denver Research Center were members of the Yellow Dog.
The Denver Research Center was the big thing for the Division of
Predator and Rodent Control. In fact, our money supported most of
the Denver Research Center at that time. I would guess 90% of
their work had to do with research on control. A man by the name
of Weldon Robinson found 1080. 1080 got its name by being the
1080 product tested.
The P&RC meetings were all very professional. They had very
professional speakers and they usually lasted about a week. I was
asked to speak when I was living in Kansas to the faculty of the
University of Kansas, Department of Biology, and Dr. Raymond
Hall, a real noted Biologist, introduces me, he said, “This is Bill
Nelson, with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Biological
Survey” or something like that…”and he is a practical Biologist.” I
think that described me about as good or better any description I
ever received when I was introduced. He was against 1080. All the
college professors were against 1080 poison. They never
understood it.
Now, they are trying to bring prairie dogs back, They were a big
nuisance to ranchers and that is why they were such a big item in
the budget. Most all ranchers wanted prairie dogs and coyotes
controlled. One time when I was State Director in Oklahoma, I got
a call from the Division Chief. in Washington. He said there’s a
move on in Congress to outlaw 1080, and asked, “Is there anyway
you can help to get it stopped?” I called Boots Adams who was
Chairman of the Phillips Petroleum Company, the biggest
company in Oklahoma. After I explained my call, he said, “Meet
me at my ranch for breakfast at 6:00 tomorrow morning”. I met
him up in Nowater County and we talked for a few minutes and I
told him about the problem. He got on the phone and he said, “Get
me Jerry Kerr.” Senator Kerr, the US Senator from Oklahoma at
that time, was probably one of the most powerful Senators in the
whole Senate. He talked to the Senator and he told him what we
wanted. Jerry said, “Don’t worry, I’ll have that killed by
tomorrow” and sure enough, he did! Politics, bang-bang!
Boots Adams had these high grade cattle on his ranch up there, and
he wanted the coyotes killed, and he knew 1080 worked real good,
and he didn’t want a bunch of do-gooders telling him he couldn’t
use it. That was the way it was all over the West. The big wealthy,
ranchers wanted coyotes controlled, and they had good contacts in
the State, and Federal legislatures and they could get lot of control.
JG: So, you spent your career…you spent your career now coming
up through the Predator and Rodent Control Program renamed
Animal Damage Control. Who were some of the other Regional
Directors at that time that you were with?
WN: All the Regional Directors at that time came up through
Predator and Rodent Control programs. They were the leaders in
the Fish & Wildlife Service. There was Ira Gabrielson, John
Gatlin, Paul Quick, Leo Lathe and…uh…oh, hell, can’t think of
the others! Early on I believe all the Regional Director came up
through the control programs.
JG: During your career is there anybody that you can identify that
was really helpful to you, that was a real mentor…or…someone
who you respect?
WN: I think it was Ted Cates who was the P&RC Supervisor in
Albuquerque. He was a great motivator. Then, in the last number
of years, Noble Beuell, was the Assistant Director in Washington.
He kind of took me under his wing and brought me along.
Unfortunately, Noble died when he was the Assistant Director
from a heart attack. One time, while in Washington as Acting
Chief, I got a call from the Assistant Secretary’s office. I went
there with Noble and Paul Quick and Deputy Director Abe
Tunnison. He was a defeated Senator from Missouri…I can’t think
of his name…when walked in the door he said, “You are fired
right now”. ‘Abe Tunnison - did you ever know Abe Tunnison? He
was a great guy. I liked Abe. Abe says, “Whoa…wait a minute,
Mr. Secretary, what’s this all about?” And he said, “Your man
working in Texas is Bill Fitzwater. He met with a bunch of
livestock people in Texas and told them if they wanted to get bird
poisoning approved to go straight to the politicians and stay away
from the hierarchy of the Interior Department. You’re fired for
hiring him.” So we talked to him for awhile, and Abe being an
excellent operator, told him what we would do and when we left
we still had our jobs!
There was another time I had been gone on a field trip for a couple
of weeks and was walking down the hall and I ran into him and
said, “Abe, I understand their is an opening in Albuquerque an
asked if I was to late to apply for it?" He said if you want it you
should apply, and about a week later they gave me the
appointment.
One of the hardest jobs I ever had while I was in Washington was
when the Assistant Director Lansing Parker died while hunting
turkey. I had camped and hunted with him a few times. He died of
a heart attack, and John Gottschalk and Abe Tunnison called me in
and asked me to speak at the funeral on behalf of the Service. You
know, here is a good friend that just died, a person who I had been
working with, and you knew all the people from Interior and all the
conservation people would be there. It was tough assignment.
JG: Did you come across people in the Fish and Wildlife Service
that you wouldn’t care to ever see again?
WN: Oh…well this guy from this…that came to try to get my job
in Albuquerque (chuckles) I…I had no love for him. He’s the only
one, but most of them were all good friends and if I was successful
at all, my whole success was being able to hire good people. I had
some real good people in fish hatcheries, in refuges, in law
enforcement, and all. I felt so, so confident in the people I had.
They were excellent.
I’ll have to get the book, but my refuge supervisor went on to
become Refuge Chief. My fish hatchery supervisor went and
become Supervisor Fishery Chief. My realty man went in and
became Realty Chief. Dick went into become Assistant Director –
Dick Smith.
6
JG: Was Lynn Greenwalt among those?
WN: Greenwalt worked for me as an Assistant. I remember at a
party we had been talking to his wife Judy. He was the Assistant
Refuge Manager at the time. I told Judy “Just give Lynn a little
longer. I think he’ll be the Director pretty soon” and she says,
“Well, I hope so. We need the money” or something like that and
about 4 or 5, 6 years, Lynn was the Director. He had a lot of
capabilities.
JG: Yeah, he was the last regular professional Fish and Wildlife
Service Director for quite a spell until more recently.
WN: When I was at a training assignment, the Bureau of Land
Management always went out and got a political appointee as its
Director, and I felt how lucky the Fish and Wildlife Service was to
get a professional at that time.
Back to Jack Berryman... While I was the Regional Director in
Albuquerque, Jack was State Director of Arizona at the Game and
Fish Department. These State Directors were appointed on 5 year
terms. He came to me and said, “Bill, my appointment”, it was
when he was on his second one, he said, “I don’t think they’re
gonna renew it”, and he said, “ I’d sure like to go to work for the
Fish and Wildlife Service. He said, “Could you get me in?” I said,
“Well, Jack, you’ll have to get on the Civil Service register, and
we may be able to find a vacancy on a refuge.” Just laughing and
he said, “Oh, hell…all my experience…you gotta at least get me a
12 or so” and I said, “I just couldn’t put you ahead of our full time,
long time employees” and he was a little bitter about it.
JG: And this was after his bout with alcoholism?
WN: This was while he was still a State Director. I don't believe
he had a problem at that time. Then he went and became President
of the International Association.
Spencer Smith was a good Director. He went out to Denver when
he retired as Director to work on a new organization when Lynn
Greenwalt became Director. I though the Area Offices were a
fiasco. When I was first appointed Regional Director, the Region
consisted of Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New
Mexico.
Then they reduced it to Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and
Arizona Then we had two Area Offices, one in Texas and in
Arizona. It was a small Region anyway, and it was just too much
overhead. I worked to help get rid of the area office. I was against
it from the start.
JG: Well, it lasted 5 years and then they went back to the way it
was.
WN: That was a good move to go back.
JG: What other stories do you have in your career that you would
like to have for posterity? You must have had some really fun
times? You talk about the Yellow Dogs, and you talk about some
of your trips, like with Rogers C.B. Morton? You have some more
good ‘ole war stories to tell? Memories?
WN: Oh, I’ve got these on these sheets of paper. You want them,
instead of putting them on the machine there.
JG: Well, we’d like to have them as part of your W.O. Nelson
archives file. I’ll be glad to take them.
A lot of people have said working for the Fish and Wildlife Service
was just like having a big family all around the country. Did you
find that, too, in your career Bill?
WN: Oh, yeah. Yeah. We had parties together. Our wives had a
Wives Club in Albuquerque. I thought it was a good organization.
Yes it had some ups-and-downs. I stopped some of our realty
people from flying their own plane and collecting mileage because
I was afraid of an airplane wreck and the tremendous damages they
could claim. This was on the advice of my solicitor. I took my
solicitor, the Department’s solicitor, with me on practically every
meeting I had because we were having closures on grazing.
Did I tell you about the story with Senator Montoya? It was the
Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, south of
Albuquerque where we allowed grazing in a limited amount. The
damn guy would keep putting on twice or three times as much
cattle as we allowed and so we canceled his permit. He went to
U.S. Senator Montoya of course and they came in and met with
me. I asked the Senator for his recommendation. The Senator just
listened and I said, “If he will agree to run the amount we
recommend, the refuge manager will allow him to graze there, but
if he doesn’t, we will cancel it”. Senator Montoya who was
powerful man in the Senate and had been there a long time, said to
the rancher, “Will you agree to that?” He said, “Yes sir, if they’ll
let me do this”. Well within 6 months or so, he was back putting on
many more head of cattle on than we agreed so I called on the
Senator. His office was just 2 doors down from mine in
Albuquerque and I asked to meet with him again, and I told him,
“Senator, he broke his agreement so we’re canceling his permit.
We’re not going to allow any cattle to graze on the Bosque del
Apache.” The Senator said, “That’s fine. He agreed in front of you
and me that he would do this and if he didn’t keep his word so go
ahead and cancel it”. We canceled the permit. It was tough to keep
the Spanish-American people from taking down the fences and
keeping their cattle out as they thought they owned the land
because their early ancestors did.
JG: There was a story that I heard years ago that was attributed to
coming out of your Albuquerque Regional Office, and it had to do
with a Regional Director…I don’t know…maybe you… but
anyway, there was a general meeting…a hearing…on the use of
1080. At this public meeting, a lady that got up and was saying
that the Fish and Wildlife Service ought to not trap these coyotes
or to poison them. She made her pleading statement in front of this
hostile audience with great oratory about man’s responsibility for
kindness to animals and all that. She ended with a plan, a request,
that the Fish & Wildlife Service should capture the coyotes and
give them birth control pills…you know, let them fade away
naturally, rather than killing them. Somebody jumped up or it was
the Regional Director said, “Lady, you got this wrong. The
coyotes aren’t having sex with the sheep, they’re killing and eating
them”.
7
WN: (Laughs).
JG: Is there any truth to that story?
WN: (Chuckles) No…but it’s probably a rancher that would get up
and say that, not a Fish and Wildlife Service employee. P&RC did
try something like that one summer here in Idaho, when I was in
Albuquerque. They placed a sex deterrent in a lard cube bait and
spread it a over part of Southern Idaho desert to see if we could
stop coyote breeding, but it wasn’t successful. Yes, but we did try
it…we tried everything. Yes. We weren’t interested in killing
coyotes, we were only interested in stopping predation on sheep
and calves. Now they are bringing predators back so they’re will
go through the whole damn thing again (chuckles). Bringing
wolves back and you know if you got wolves, they will eat and
they will eat what’s available… They’re just opportunist.
Whatever is available they’re kill and eat it. You can’t blame the
wolves.
JG: Bill, I’m sure you saw a lot of changes within Fish and
Wildlife Service over the course of your career, and I noted here
that you got involved a bit with endangered species and whooping
crane recovery.
WN: Oh yes, that was quite a deal. We mated and planted
whooping cranes at Gray’s Lake in Idaho and they wintered at
Bosque del Apache Refuge in New Mexico. We had an agreement
with the Audubon Society that we could still hunt snow geese.
Snow geese and whooping cranes look a lot alike. They both have
white bodies and black tips on the end of their wings but the cranes
were much bigger with longer legs and wings. We were afraid that
if we started the project that Audubon would demand that we stop
hunting snow geese and the Refuge was the only place in New
Mexico where snow geese wintered. Things went well with the
snow geese…we hunted them with no problems…no one shot a
whooping crane. They had loud speakers that said, “whooping
crane in the area, no shooting” and stuff like that. The Whoopers
didn’t survive, they would hit power lines, or coyotes would kill
them. The a project was discontinued when I retired. I still believe
it was good one and by working on it they could made it work.
However I am now an honorary life member of the Whooping
Crane Association, because of that work.
JG: So, some of the early recovery work for whooping cranes, you
started while you were Regional Director?
WN: Right. Right. The experiment at Grays Lake – Bosque
Refuge also down to Aransas National Wildlife Refuge on Gulf
Coast in Texas. That’s a very good refuge down there. We had a
lot of great refuges along the Gulf coast down in Texas. We had a
lot of great refuge managers. Yes, real dedicated! Really great
people!
JG: I’m basically, basically through asking the questions, Bill. Is
there anything that you wanted to add, or reminisce, or talk about
on your career? People…incidents?
WN: I worked long hours. It wasn’t an 8 to 5 shift. I’d go in
usually at 7:00 and work on weekends…my wife kept track of me
once…I was at meetings or attending different things for 10
straight weekends in a row. Game and Fish organizations would
hold weekend meetings or sportsmen events as group meetings. I’d
go on weekends to speak or listen and find out what was
happening, but it was enjoyable work. You know, some of these
sportsmen groups would get so wild or off on some other
deals…and…yes. And, they always wanted to meet on Saturdays
and Sundays
Oh…and I used to love to hunt ducks and pheasants myself. I tell
you, I took a couple of beatings at some of the commission
meetings in Texas. They didn’t always agree with the Fish and
Wildlife Service, but all you could do was support the Service.
Most of the other state commissions were pretty good. They’d go
along pretty good but Texas never did much (chuckles). They did
appoint me an Honorary Game Warden for the State of Texas.
JG: Thank you, Bill for taking the time out and talking with us.
WN: Oh…my pleasure. I enjoyed it. I always enjoyed talking to
groups while I was working.
8
STORIES OF REMINISCING
A VISIT TO THE FORT APACHE INDIAN
RESERVATION - PROBABLY IN 1943.
At that time, I was the Assistant State Supervisor for Wildlife
Services, U S Fish and Wildlife Service for Arizona. The Service
was doing most of the fish and wildlife work on Indian
reservations. On the White River Apache Reservation; in the
beautiful White Mountains, the Service had a trout fish hatchery.
The Tribe asked Wildlife Services to help with bears that were
killing their purebred white faced cattle. This was the Tribe’s most
important enterprise. The Indians had great superstition about
killing bears but did not care if others did.
I was assigned to check the hunter’s progress and make
sure the project was going right. The hunter assigned to do the
work, Russell Culbreth was an excellent man for the job. He had a
big old mule to carry his traps and other gear. The Tribe paid
Russell’s salary. He and his family were provided a nice home at a
remote school and he invited me to bring JoEllen, Judy and Jacque
with me. JoEllen was fascinated and a little scared, Judy four or
five was very curious and loved to play with the Indian children
who lived at the school. As it was warm, Jacque wore only diapers
and she fascinated the Indian women. Their children wore only a
top or shirt, no bottom. The Indian ladies laughed and thought it
was crazy to soil a diaper, and then wash it. It made their day. In
those days no one heard of disposable diapers. The small babies
were in cradle boards. The first we had ever seen.
One night just before we went to bed there was a knock on the
door and there stood an adult Indian women with her face so
beaten that you could not recognize her. They asked if we would
take her to the hospital in White River. Russell and I did and when
we returned we found out that she did not belong to the Indian
group living at the school but had taken up with one of the men at
a bar and came home with him. The other women at the school
apparently had used their cowboy boot heels to stomp the flesh
from her face and do other damage. I understand she lived.
I shot my first and only bear that Russell had it in a trap. This
project lasted for a year or so. At another time Russell dressed out
a bear for eating and brought some to the office. We invited some
friends over to taste a roast and most of them liked it, some did not.
We only cooked it once. Some at the office thought it good and
others never wanted it again. You may recall in reading about early
hunters, they always ate bear when they could.
When growing up Dad had bear grease at hand for us to treat our
hiking boots claiming it gave them excellent protection and made
them water proof.
APPEARANCE BEFORE THE SENATE
APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE
I had just been transferred to Washington D.C, with the U. S, Fish
and Wildlife Service as the Assistant Division Chief, Wildlife
Services, in the spring of 1963. One day as the Acting Division
Chief I was asked to appear before the Senate Appropriation
Committee with Jim Stevenson, in charge of legislation for the
Service and the man in charge of legislation for the Department of
Interior. Having never been to the Capitol I was apprehensive but
not too worried as I was not to speak and only to be there as a back
up authority on the subject.
A Congressman from California had requested the Senate take
away the tax imposed on netting used to cover trees and other fruit
to protect them from bird damage. His request was being heard
before the Ways and Means Committee chaired by Wilbur Mills’s
from Missouri. This is the most powerful committee in Congress.
When we arrived, the Military were requesting funds and went on
and on. My companions decided the Military would be on for a
long time and went for coffee. They told me to stay just in case we
were called. No sooner had they left when Chairman Mills called
for the Dept. of Interior. I stood up and told him others were here
but not in the room and he said for me to take a seat and they
would start. I raised my right arm and took the oath. Chairman
Mills was abrupt and made it clear he was a very important and
busy man. Chairman Mills asked two or three questions from
information he had been provided. Chairman Mills then allowed
the Congressman from California to ask me a few questions about
the large money crop lost that was caused from bird damage. Then
a Senator, a member of the committee, asked about the prospects
for the duck hunting that fall. Then another member asked about
ducks in his state. Fortunately I had just set in on a Director’s
briefing on the waterfowl surveys in Alaska, Canada and the
prairie states. Then Chairman Mills cut if off and said to me that
would be all and thanked me for coming.
Jim and the Department man came back about five or ten minutes
later and could not believe I had testified. They were two worried
men fearful that they may lose their jobs over this goof. However
nothing happened.
I wished I had picked up a copy of the printed procedures but did
not realize they were available at that time. This also gave me my
first introduction to the famous Senate bean soup in the Senate
dining room then open to the public.
9
WORLD WAR II - MY WORST NIGHT
I was the postmaster at a US prison camp for German Prisoners
and it was one of the plush assignments. This was new camp
established to hold German prisoner that were surrendering very
fast towards the end of the war. It was established in fields along
the Rhine River with no facilities at all. We were housed in an
Underberg factory. This factory made stomach tonic. My post
office was on the ground floor so to be available to every one. I
scrounged a nice desk from a paper office and furniture from a nice
home. While in the home the two prisoners I had to load the
furniture ask if they could go in the basement to see if there was
any canned fruit. I said O. K. and in a few minutes they returned
with out any fruit but told me there were two dead German soldiers
down there. I checked it out, and then reported it, so they could
send some one out to collect them. I picked up a German prisoner
each day to clean the post office. I used the same person most of
the time. He was a college graduate in engineering and learned to
speak English while working in Mexico. I also fed him.
With no prison fences to start with, no shelter, no cooking facilities
to feed the prisoners and the soldiers not trained to guard prisoners
they were very much over worked. One day we were called and
ask if we, who were not guards, would give the guards a break and
help them that night. A friend and whom I have forgotten his name
but I believe it was Johnny. We agreed to guard the railroad station
as no trains were to arrive that night. As it was a small town with a
small station it had only one light at the door leading to the waiting
room. About midnight an unscheduled train loaded with German
war prisoners arrived. It was a long train of cattle cars as full of
prisoners as it would hold.
The guards unloaded the prisoners and lined them in a column of
about 4’s and it seemed like a half block long. We told them the
prison compound was down the road about a mile or so and they
told us no way. They said they had been on the train for over 10
hours and were dead tired. They were ours and got on the train and
pulled out. Johnny and I talked it over and decided he would go for
help and I would stay and guard the prisoners. He took off on the
run and I ask for some one who could speak English. One
volunteered and he and I walked down the row and I had him tell
them we had machine guns located out on the dark and if any made
a break they would start shooting the bunch; I then went back and
stood under the light with the safety off my carbine thinking I
would get 6 of them before they got me. Here I was, one person on
a very dark night guarding a large train load of dirty, tried, hungry
prisoners by my self. It seemed like forever before the trucks and
the guards arrive.
It’s a night I will never forget even though it happened in the
spring of 1945, a long time ago. I have forgotten what town it was
located in or the name of the compound or the unit I was in but I
haven’t forgotten crossing the Rhine River and some of the early
hardships before we settled at the prison camp.
LONDON BRIDGE – WORLD WAR II
GERMAN ROCKETS
My brother Ray and I met in London during World War 11 and
one evening, just after dark, while standing on London Bridge
some one shouted to be quiet. We then heard putt, putt, putt and
then the loudest explosion you can imagine. The impact was
enough to shake the bridge so we thought it hit right beside it. We
hurried and got off the bridge. The next morning we learned from
the newspaper, a German V-2 rocket hit quite a distance from us
causing a great deal of destruction.
Hitler told the World he was developing a new device capable for
him to win the war. The V-2 rocket was to be the tool but they did
not have time to fully develop it before the war was over. The
Russians captured many German scientist but the Americans were
able to capture Dr. Wernher von Braun, the chief German rocket
scientist and a number of his colleagues. They brought them to the
United States and stationed them at the White Sand Missile Range
just out of El Paso, Texas along with a number of unfired V-2
rockets for additional testing.
In the Spring on 1948 I spent two weeks at Fort Bliss in El Paso,
Texas for my reserve officer training assignment. The war had just
ended in 1945 and Dr. Wernher von Braun was in full swing there.
He spent a day with us [about 20 officers] and explained the U S
plans for landing on the moon which happened almost the way he
describe it about twenty years later. He also explained rockets to us
and shot a V-2 rocket off while we were there. The rocket started
off course and they shut it off causing a loud explosion when the
unburned oxygen hit the earth. Dr. von Braun, a very brilliant man,
later became the United States lead scientist for our space program.
In the late 1960 or the early 1970's the old London Bridge was torn
down in London, England and the stones were kept in tack then
shipped to Lake Havasu on the lower Colorado River in Arizona.
The exact London Bridge was rebuilt with the old stones over part
of the lake as a tourist attraction. Before the Corps of Engineers
could give permission to allow water to circulate under the bridge
they needed approval from the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service. As
the Colorado River covered many States, the U. S. Fish and
Wildlife Services Regional Office in Albuquerque, New Mexico
was the controlling federal agency for environmental issues
covering the River. As Regional Director I signed the letter giving
the U. S. Fish and Wildlife approval. This is the same bridge my
brother and I had our near life threatening miss during the war.